How to beat this kind of player?

Hi guys,

This weekend I'm playing a tournament, both singles and doubles, and I'm pretty sure it's possible that I'll have to face a guy who beat me the last time we played (in singles).

He's around 55 years old and not very fast. He always hits his forehand and backhand the same way. His forehand has a huge amount of slice and has a really low bounce. It was very difficult for me to attack it. On the backhand wing, he always hit a very very high lob, that usually lands very deep near the baseline.

Now I'll tell you a bit about me. I'm 26 years old, 6 ft tall and I'm a fast runner, I usually get to a lot of balls. My forehand and backhand are quite similar in terms of consistency and power, maybe my backhand is a bit more powerful but flatter which gives me less margin of error. I'm not really confident with my overhead smashes which is a problem considering his high lobs.

Another problem for me is that the matches are not played best of 3 sets. It's just 1 set, so I can't get him tired. The last time we played I tried several things, but just one set is not enough time to adjust (at least not for me, lol).

His serve is not that great, so I thought I might risk a bit with the returns and try to put him in a tough spot.

I wouldn't recommend hitting an overhead off a deep looping ball, they often take bad bounces. Try just hitting a hard forehand. For the low slice ball really bend the knees and swing up a la nadal like someone said in LT's thread, it works great. If you're going to unload on a return plan where you want it to go beforehand. It's a small thing but it makes a surprisingly big difference for me. The other thought i had is you could attack his forehand and come in to the net since slice shots are usually a bit easier to volley. If he's not a good mover hit from corner to corner and create some short angles if at all possible.

Thanks for your advice guys. The guy I told you about didn't play, but I ended up playing against one that was better... he hit very hard, low bouncing slice shots off both wings... it was impossible to get into rythm... rallies were 6 shots long tops. He moved me from side to side and I was never able to hit with a good balance... I didn't serve well either, so it was a complete disaster lol. I even fell to the ground because it was starting to rain a bit (we were playing on clay).